The evolution of 4th Generation (4G) wireless communications networks such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) is being driven by customer demand for higher capacity and peak throughput. A number of approaches have been developed to meet such demand. However, low data rate cell-edge users continue to pose challenges to meeting these demands. Such users tend to be interference limited. Additionally, where such users are located indoors, there may be coverage gaps that constrain performance.
Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) is a framework of methods to improve both peak user throughput as well as aggregated network throughput in a mobile cellular network. These methods employ multiple access points or base stations (known in the LTE environment as evolved NodeBs or eNodeBs or eNBs) grouped in a CoMP set of cooperating nodes to communicate with a wireless device (a User Equipment (UE) in LTE) of interest.
CoMP methods may be configured in either a centralized coordinated approach or through a distributed processing architecture to improve capacity. A centralized approach to CoMP where a central node or server coordinates CoMP transmissions between CoMP sets benefit from complete knowledge of the CoMP signals and context. However, such approaches rely on high capacity backhaul interconnects (e.g. via an S1 and/or X2 interface) between the base stations in the CoMP set. Centralized CoMP transmission and reception techniques use multiple transmit and receive antennas from different locations to send/receive data and to reduce signal interference to the UE. In contrast, distributed processing architectures for CoMP may achieve lower latency and reduced backhaul complexity but may experience reduced performance relative to a centralized CoMP approach.
In LTE-A, CoMP currently includes methods such as Coordinated Scheduling (CS), Coordinated Beamforming (CB), Joint Processing (JP), and Dynamic Point Selection.
In CS, the resource assignment is coordinated among multiple base stations, and transmitted/received from/to a selected base station. In CB, coordination among base stations or access points is coordinated so that their transmissions are beamformed and directed toward the UE. In downlink (DL) JP, common data is transmitted by multiple base stations and processed jointly by the UE. In uplink (UL) JP, data from the UE is provided to multiple base stations. Two challenges faced in JP, especially UL JP, are the backhaul latency and the backhaul bandwidth called for to transmit data from the receiving base stations to a single process node, which may, in some implementations, be a base station. As such, systems and methods for improved data file upload performance are needed.